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Sam Pettengill encountered his fair share of rattlers when he lived in Arizona, so he was unfazed when he found a small brown snake just inside the door of his Poolesville home Sunday.

Pettengill, a cook who lives and works at Kunzang Palyul Choling Buddhist temple on River Road, discovered the 7-inch snake around 11 p.m. after coming back from a walk with his dog. He tried to pick up the snake to bring it outside when it bit him on the knuckle. Twice.

"It hurt like a bee sting, like something burning," Pettengill, 36, said from his room at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital on Tuesday.

An hour and a half later, his hand was swollen and the pain began traveling up his arm. Pettengill looked at pictures online to figure out what bit him — a timber rattlesnake, one of two venomous snake species found in the state, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Timber rattlers live in rocky, forested areas and can grow up to 6 feet long but average 9-10 inches when they're born, according to the department. They generally avoid people but will venture inside to hibernate or follow mice.

Pettengill was treated with antivenin and will require some physical therapy to regain full use of his arm, he said. He moved to Poolesville in September from Arizona, where he occasionally had to relocate large rattlesnakes.

"It was just five seconds of grabbing a snake," he said. "Poison control didn't even believe me."

Venomous snake bites are uncommon in Maryland, according to DNR — two to six people are bitten each year and fatalities are rare. About 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the U.S. each year and about five are killed, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Doctors at Shady Grove see one to two venomous snake bites a year, mostly people who keep them as pets or have encountered them in the wild, emergency physician Dr. Joel Buzy said. "It's actually fairly rare," he said.